Be your digital self …

We all have at least one digital self, something representing us to engage in the technological world. Initially this may just be information about us and related data. But at some point, in time this digital footprint will learn and adopt our behaviors and become active.

We may have multiple digital selves – genuine and facades. The genuine self is the one which learns directly from our behaviors and mirrors our social identity. The facades are tailored for specific situations or may try to protect the genuine self.

The genuine digital self will become a mirror of you – most likely knowing more about you than you do yourself.

Is the genuine digital self a legal subject or just acting on behalf? Our genuine digital self will be able to act much faster considering more information than we can – if allowed. We must consider the level of responsibility and accountability on our physical self for what it does. Should this begin with a form of parent child relation and to evolve becoming a legal subject over time. This evolved relationship enables the digital citizen to grow and learn over time to become of full legal age at some point.

Ethical standards for digital selves will become increasingly important – humans have ethical basic patterns which are inherited and part of the DNA. Before digital selves become widely adopted and increasing active, digital self will require such standards.

We will, as part of the evolution, need to revisit our standards of privacy. Are we able to pause our digital self and what would be the impact and disruption to our digital ecosystem? Digital self-editing may sound funny but may soon become a serious issue when others detect discrepancies and lead to distrust. Observed digital selves – you observed by others – can be used to validate information or complement it. So, you need to become more yourself – which for most people is not a big issue.

We need to evolve our perspective of what we treat and define as sensitive information during this journey. Fundamental attributes such as name, birth date or social security number will be increasingly hard to protect. So, we will need to change the way how we see personal information during this journey. Many legacy constructs like credit card numbers are not suitable for the digital age and must be replaced – this is the essence of the ‘digital transformation’.

Obviously, the digital self needs to be well secured and protected. This includes integrity, availability and confidentiality. Initially you will be responsible to keep your true digital self secure. But at some point, this will change and your digital self starts to protect you – two evolutionary states of digital self defense.